Mapping landscape values and exploring sense of place in a threatened mangrove biodiversity hotspot: the Sundarbans delta, Bangladesh

Figures & data

Figure 1. Study area: The Sundarbans Reserve Forest (SRF) and study area extent (SRF plus a 10 km buffer zone).

Table 1. Kruskal-Wallis tests of differences in the number of mapped landscape values between sociodemographic categories of respondents.

Social characteristics	Sample proportion N = 344 (%)	Mapped values (% in parentheses) (N = 1934)	Total of mapped values
			X^2	df	P
Age
18–35	131 (38.1)	727 (37.6)	1.029	3	0.794
36–50	104 (30.2)	614 (31.7)
51–65	79 (23.0)	446 (23.1)
>65 years	30 (8.7)	147 (7.6)
Education
No formal schooling	128 (37.2)	789 (40.8)	4.884	6	0.558
Primary school	100 (29.1)	528 (27.3)
High school	30 (8.7)	150 (7.8)
Secondary school	65 (18.9)	342 (17.7)
Technical college	1 (0.3)	4 (0.2)
Bachelor degree	13 (3.8)	81 (4.2)
Master degree	7 (2.0)	40 (2.1)
Profession
Agriculture	9 (2.6)	79 (4.1)	131.47	9	<0.001
Aquaculture	58 (16.9)	306 (15.8)
Small and medium business	28 (8.1)	143 (7.4)
Day labor	17 (4.9)	84 (4.3)
Firewood and Building material collection	1 (0.3)	12 (0.6)
Fishing and crab collection	55 (16.0)	564 (29.2)
Public private and NGOs job	16 (4.7)	94 (4.9)
Homemaker	97 (28.2)	333 (17.2)
Student	10 (2.9)	48 (2.5)
Other	53 (15.4)	271 (14.0)
Religion
Islam	241 (70.1)	1376 (71.1)	1.793	2	0.407
Hinduism	95 (27.6)	506 (26.2)
Christianity	8 (2.3)	52 (2.7)

Table 2. Perceived sense of place in the Sundarbans mangrove forest.

Perceived sense of place	Example of each facet of sense	Responses (n)	Responses in %
Place identity
Identity	‘It is my home’ ‘It is like my mother’ ‘I am someone from the Sundarbans that I feel always’	87	20.0
Place meaning	‘No Sundarbans, no locality here’ ‘It is a benefit giver’ ‘We could have vanished if the Sundarbans was not here’	26	6.0
Wildlife and trees	‘I like the wildlife living inside the forest’ ‘I feel proud of Bengal Tiger’ ‘I like the special Sundari tree’	16	3.7
Place attachment
Beauty	‘I love Sundarbans for its natural beauty’ ‘It is a beautiful place’ ‘The natural beauty of Sundarbans is unbelievable’	28	6.4
Wellbeing	‘Mentally I feel good here in Sundarbans’ ‘Its beauty gives peace in mind’ ‘There are a lot of memories with the forest’	28	6.4
Place dependence
Livelihood	‘I am feeding my family by earning from the Sundarbans’ ‘My complete livelihood depends on the Sundarbans’ ‘I get income from the forest’	108	24.8
Disaster protection	‘It gives us protection against storms’ ‘It protects us from the havoc of floods’ ‘Sundarbans is the protector against cyclones’	90	20.6
Sustenance of life	‘Biodiversity and climate, two important issues are met here’ ‘It is good for the extreme weather in this area’ ‘The Sundarbans is balancing the environment’	25	5.7
Air quality	‘It gives us lifesaving oxygen’ ‘I like the fresh air near the Sundarbans’ ‘It is a storage of oxygen’	20	4.6
Eco-tourism	‘It is a place for travelling’ ‘The greenery of the forest attracts tourists’ ‘Foreigners come here to enjoy the forest’	8	1.8

Figure 2. Spatial distribution of material and non-material landscape values. Intensity decreases from red to yellow to green. The Sundarbans Reserve Forest (SRF), and the study area extent means the Sundarbans mangrove forest core zone including 10 km buffer zone.

Table 3. Perceived threats to livelihood and sense of place.

Perceived threats	Example of each individual threats	Responses (n)	Responses in %
Environmental threats
Encroachment of salt water	‘Saltwater is the main problem. All other problems are tolerable to me’	85	19.6
Nature-induced threats (cyclone, flood, river erosion, etc.)	‘Cyclones and floods destroy our property. River erosion is a serious problem in our life’	17	3.9
Extreme weather	‘The weather is very unfriendly here in this region’	14	3.2
River damming	‘There are some dams in the river, which should not be there, to increase soil fertility in this area’	1	0.2
Socio-economic threats
Drinking water scarcity	‘The drinking water crisis is threatening my livelihood directly. I do not have enough financial solvency to buy the drinking water from the market on a regular basis’	112	25.9
Lack of transportation and communication	‘If someone gets sick, it is not possible to bring them to hospital immediately because our communication system is very bad’	44	10.2
Shrimp virus	‘Due to a virus, recently the shrimp production has been reduced dramatically’	41	9.5
Financial insolvency	‘Poverty is a common phenomenon in this area, almost every one owes to banks or to NGOs or to informal credit institutes like Mahajan’	39	9.0
Officials’ misbehaviour	‘When a lot of fish are in the river, the government give restrictions on fishing, that regulations are very harmful for our life, day by day it is getting harder and complicated for the forest dependent people’	31	7.2
Lack of alternative jobs	‘Fewer working opportunities in my area’	27	6.2
Land transformation to shrimp ponds	‘I cannot rear cattle because there no grazing land. Most of the agricultural land in this area is transformed into Shrimp ponds’	8	1.8
Inequity	‘Shrimp culture put all lands into few people’s hands’	5	1.2
Fishing with poison	‘Poison fishing is a big problem in this area and it reduces the total income of fishers’	5	1.2
Lack of education	‘The low literacy rate is the main hindrance of development for the people in this area’	3	0.7
Overharvesting of resources	‘Fish is very expensive for me because it is not produced well, due to illegal overharvesting’	1	0.2